PERILOUS PROFESSIONS


PERILOUS PROFESSIONS

A street vendor is offering mats with kaleidoscopic designs around the Gofa neighbourhood. The thousands of agile vendors scattered about the capital conduct their businesses, evading the watchful eye and whipping baton of the Code Enforcement Authority. As the Addis Abeba City Administration looks to either register and extract taxes from the network of informal businessmen or remove them from the streets, a daily cat-and-mouse spectacle unfolds in the capital. Estimates place the size of the urban informal employment sector at somewhere between 20 and 40pc, with the vast discrepancies partly stemming from a population census lagging for 17 years.


In-Picture

BOOK NOOK

A recessed section of the wall of Prosperity Party's HQ building is just the place for an outdoor bookstall in the vicinity of Arat Kilo roundabout, on Queen Elizabeth St. Arat Kilo is famous for its confluence of administrative, religious, and educational centres. With Brehanena Selam Printing Press also nearby, newspaper and books sales were naturally drawn to the area. This seller captures a unique way of displaying and selling printed material in an outdoor setting, though rain would be a ca...


In-Picture

LION'S LAIR

One of Addis Abeba's emblems, the distinctive lion statue looks towards the 53-storey tall Commercial Bank of Ethiopia HQ building, juxtaposing heritage and contemporary architecture. The black stone monument, sculpted by French artist Maurice Calka, commemorated the Silver Jubilee of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1955 and sits adjacent to the National Theatre, formerly Haile Selassie I Theatre. CBE's HQ, costing 304 million dollars, is the tallest in East Africa at 209 metres. It has joined the l...


In-Picture

GLASS GLEAMERS

A long pole is used to clean the exterior windows of Best Western Plus Pearl on Cameroon St in the Bole Brass neighbourhood. The adjacent road is currently under corridor development project and would suffer from heavy dust, adding burden to the gentleman's work. Three Best Western hotels are conveniently located within five kilometres of each other in Addis Abeba. The Best Western Plus is situated near Edna Mall roundabout, while the Best Western Premier Dynasty is found in Wello Sefer, across...